One such example can be seen in the life of William Carey, missionary to India.
"William Carey," argues an (Indian) female social science scholar, "was the first man to stand against both the ruthless murders and widespread oppression of women, virtually synonymous with Hinduism in the 18th and 19th centuries. The male in India was crushing the female through polygamy, female infanticide, child marriage, widow-burning, euthanasia and forced female illiteracy, all sanctioned by religion. The British Government timidly accepted these social evils as being an irreversible and an intrinsic part of India's religious mores.
Carey began to conduct systematic sociological and scriptural research. He published his reports in order to raise public opinion and protest both in Bengal and England. He influenced a whole generation of civil servants, his students at Fort William College, to resist these evils.
Carey opened schools for girls. When widows converted to Christianity, he arranged marriages for them rather than allowing them to be burned alive. It was Carey's persistent 25 year battle against sati that finally led to Lord Bentinck's famous Edict in 1829, banning one of the most abominable of all religious practices in the world: "widow-burning." (Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi).
Today, the eyes that haunt me most are those of Muslim women and girls. Their fate is similar, in many ways, to the Indian women of Carey's time. Polygamy, female infanticide, child marriage, honor killings and forced female illiteracy, all sanctioned by religion. Yet the American government, in many ways, seems to mirror the British government by timidly accepting these social evils as being an irreversible and an intrinsic part of Muslim religious mores.
Whatever the reason, as in the time of William Carey, it is not going to be the government of America, or any other nation, that speaks up for the Muslim women. It MUST be the Church.
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